Principles of Design

Suggested Differentiation Strategies:

• Provide handout with examples and definitions • Add definitions and examples to the back of the design name cards • Peer/group pairing for diverse learners • Adjust/limit technical tools used in the software (or provide traditional design materials) • Assign principles of design that are more clearly understood by students instead of having students choose • For advanced students, provide additional challenges in the design stage

Throughout this lesson suggested teacher notes and comments are in red.

1. Engage (10 minutes)

1. Observe the posters or other artwork provided by your teacher

Pick out a few covers of magazines, advertisements, popular posters, and other contemporary work online or in a medium that matches the course’s curriculum .

2. For each, write down something you like about it on a sheet of paper or sticky note. Students should write large enough that it can be read by others in the room.

3. Tape your papers on the white board in front of the class. Your teacher will then help you classify them. Allow students to tape their sheets of paper on the board in any order. Then work with them to arrange the comments into groups of similar comments. Require students to provide a name for each category. The comments are not to be aligned to the artwork. Elements of design transcend the individual work. Alternate online tools with a whiteboard concept could be used also, such as; Jamboard, Google Slides, etc. The names for the categories are likely to be similar to the vocabulary introduced later in this lesson.

2. Explore ( 135 minutes):

Part I:

1. Get into groups of 2 or 3.

2. As a group, look through these professional design examples here that have interesting uses of space and composition. The professional design examples are also placed at the end of the lesson for printing. 3. Inspired by those examples, brainstorm what decisions do designers make when they “design?” Write down the steps you think a designer takes while creating a new design. The categories discovered in the Engage activity should be helpful.

4. Support each answer with your group’s reason(s).